“Confused as a termite in a YO-YO”: Appleby Baptist and Religion in the South

“Confused as a termite in a
YO-YO”: Appleby Baptist and Religion in the South

By Charity R Carney

The folks at Appleby Baptist hate a lot of things. Here’s
just a sampling of the targets of the Independent Fundamentalist congregation:
interracial marriage, Obama, cowboy churches, other Independent Baptists, the
NIV, tattoos, Southern Baptists, Beth Moore, flashy clothing, John Calvin, oh,
and interracial marriage. That last one deserved repeating because it comes up
A LOT. Most of the church’s vitriol is aimed at evangelicals themselves, who
are not living up to Appleby’s standards of Christianity and confronting these
“sins” head on. The small church a few miles from my house has received some national attention
lately for promoting racist and sexist doctrines, especially with is insistence
on preaching the Curse of Ham. But there is more to Appleby than racist
theology. The church promotes a range of fundamentalist doctrines that make
Southern Baptists look liberal. In fact, Dennis Anderson (the lead pastor for
Appleby) uses the word “liberal” interchangeably with “Southern Baptist,” in
his writings.

As I’ve talked to locals who are just discovering this
congregation, I’ve found myself contextualizing in the midst of their many
condemnations. We should condemn these doctrines but to dismiss them as wacky
or ignorant is to forget our own history. For southerners especially, Appleby Baptist
offers a real opportunity for us to take a closer look at our past and how it’s
informed the present—beyond the walls of one fanatical congregation.

At
first listen, Anderson’s fire-and-brimstone sermons seem like some strange
sampling of Billy Sunday, Jonathan Edwards, and antebellum proslavery Baptists
like Thornton String-fellow. Anderson has very real connections to Edwards in
terms of dark prophetic imagery, combining a reliance on the vernacular with an
obsession for jeremiads. He also borrows from Sunday’s theatrical intonations, using
anecdotes and flamboyant metaphors to articulate his points. And those points
incorporate themes and arguments reminiscent of proslavery apologists who used
Scripture to justify the peculiar institution. The influences of these predecessors
are apparent but wrapped in a particular perspective unique to Appleby Baptist
that is at once offensive and laughable. (In a recent article, for instance,
Dennis Anderson addressed other ministers who do not follow his creed as the “liberal
minded, sissy acting, silk panty wearing wimps, who will no doubt have the
opinion that I shouldn’t be calling names.”)

Beyond
incendiary rhetoric, what may be more distressing to many Christians is that
Appleby is not an anomaly within the larger history of evangelicalism in the
South. In fact, its core beliefs are very similar to those held in the
nineteenth century and well into the twentieth (some gender inequalities are obviously
still being debated and negotiated within larger denominations). The Southern
Poverty Law Center rightly picked up on the church’s open devotion to the Curse
of Ham and their loud protests against interracial marriage. The church proclaims
that “God is a separator, not a mixer” and Anderson lays out the
antiquated justification for slavery and segregation based on a very specific interpretation
of the curse placed on Canaan in Genesis. This kind of racist doctrine was used
in the antebellum South to promote slavery and in the Jim Crow South to support
racial discrimination/segregation. Stephen Haynes’s work—including his article in a
2000 issue of the Journal of Southern Religion
and monograph Noah’s
Curse(Oxford UP, 2002)—has rightly situated the myth within southern
honor culture. Sylvester Johnsons’ The
Myth of Hampresents the ways that Hamitic identity affected black
Christians. In many places throughout the South, the Curse of Ham is still
taught but the churches simply aren’t publishing articles on the Internet
promoting the myth.

But in
addition to its racist doctrines, Appleby also promotes outmoded (but not
unheard of) spiritual sexism. In a scathing
review of Beth Moore’s leadership at First Baptist in Houston (a megachurch
about two hours away), Anderson calls Moore a “spiritual whore” for preaching
that God can call women into ministry, using the NIV Bible (the King James is
the only acceptable version at Appleby, being “pro-Christ” rather than “pro-Roman
Catholic”), and drinking too much coffee from Starbucks, indicating her
worldliness and affluence. (There is an interesting intersection of gender, class,
and religion here that needs further dissection.) Moore “has trouble with
authority” and “is not happy with being a woman, wife, mother, and homemaker.”
Women who follow her have husbands who are “HOUSEBROKE” and “HENPECKED.”
Anderson urges them: “Stand up and be a man! Take charge of your home, and get
your family under some real Bible preaching that the gates of Hell cannot
shake. God told you to take command of your house by the Word of God. Quit
being a SISSY and STAND UP and be a man for God.” The gender politics at
Appleby is fascinating and the masculine rhetoric is overpowering. But it is
not wildly distinct from the positions taken by other, mainstream denominations
in the South. Appleby sits squarely within the long history of gender
inequality in Christianity and debates over women’s religious leadership.
Elizabeth Flowers’s excellent new book, Into the Pulpit: Southern Baptist Women and Power since World War II (UNC,
2012), details the struggles over female ordination in the SBC. Baptists,
Methodists, Mormons—all have experienced recent discourse over the subject of
women’s role in the church. Women and Twentieth-Century Protestantism(edited by Margaret Bendroth and Virginia
Brereton; Illinois, 2002) offers insight into this discourse in many Protestant
groups. Evangelicalism has wrestled with this conflict/crisis for a long time,
in other words, and Appleby is simply contributing to that narrative.

Despite
any congruence with mainstream religious history, Appleby preaches these
messages with a certain… how shall I say this… verve? Anderson has translated
past evangelical beliefs into modern terms (with additional offensive flare).
There are no gentlemen theologians at the church but, instead, its leaders rely
on crude analogies and language to stir the emotions of their congregants. When
addressing the minister who does not denounce interracial marriage, Anderson
calls him a “TURD CHUNKING MONKEY.” When denouncing Christian authors Henry
Cloud and John Townsend, the preacher argues that they may be “sweet on each
other” since they took their author photo together, and launches into a series of
attacks that utilizes a myriad of epithets for homosexuals. Anyone who reads
Cloud and Townsend’s books, Anderson claims, is as “CONFUSED as a termite in a
YO-YO.” This incendiary style of preaching mirrors that of Westboro Baptist and
presents a twist to other racial or gendered religious doctrines presented by
other churches. It’s angry and offensive and intentional, but it’s not new.

Although
Appleby presents its beliefs in a different way, they are beliefs that were
widely held for much of American religious history. The same prejudiced
doctrines were crafted with care in the slaveholding South, promoted into the
twentieth century, and are still practiced in small congregations throughout
the region. Within this historical context, Appleby offers much in terms of
revealing the connections between past and present in southern religion and
forces us to consider the lasting effects of lost causes on our belief systems.
In criticizing Appleby, perhaps we are revealing our own revulsion with past
sins. Appleby’s doctrine is not unmoored, but is connected to earlier
trends/beliefs that simply do not mesh with our current culture, and that is
what makes us so mad. It would be worthwhile to heed the Southern Poverty Law
Center’s “Hatewatch” warning: “the
same seeds of hatred proudly displayed by Appleby and an unknown number of
other independent fundamentalist churches are scattering, planted to grow in
coming generations.” But what this statement ignores is that Appleby and other
independent fundamentalist churches did not plant the seed; they are instead
sowing the seeds of southern religious history that were planted well before
Dennis Anderson ever picked up a King James Bible.

Is there really much to be learned from bottom-feeding on our theo-political enemies?

It would be worthwhile to heed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hatewatch” warning: “the same seeds of hatred proudly displayed by Appleby and an unknown number of other independent fundamentalist churches are scattering, planted to grow in coming generations.”

Or not. IMO, the SPLC's irresponsible use of the label "hate group" is a lot more divisive to the American polity than these mooks.

I used to pick up tracts lying on the street from a crank named Tony Alamo. Stuff about Jesus and Khadafi's Third World and I forget what else. Then one day he was in jail for doing the little girls in his congregation.

About a month ago, I ran across an Alamo tract again in its customary spot, lying on the pavement of a parking lot. I take this of a greater sign of...well, not much really. In the end, these snake-handling cults die of their own sacramental venom.